[Cryptography] Statement from Attorney General William P., Barr on Introduction of Lawful Access Bill in Senate

[Christian Huitema]

On 6/30/2020 7:11 PM, Bob Wilson wrote:
> Re:
>> Encryption has never been regulated internally for almost all
>> purposes. (Ham radio can't use encryption, but that's not only just
>> for radio, but internationally it was. Even here, there are
>> complexities that I can't describe both succinctly and accurately.)
> From what I have read the rule against encryption for hams (such as I
> am) was put in because around the time of WWI there was fear people
> (not just hams, if they are in fact people) were leaking information
> to Germany. Remember how much hatred of German emigres there was,
> leading people to change their names and quit speaking German where it
> had been the language spoken at home. I don't know whether there would
> be much opposition to removing the prohibition for hams now, but
> discussing that might lead us away into politics... 


That is certainly how the French regulation of encryption started. It
was written during WW1, in very general terms, so as to regulate the
practice in any electronic communication. It was only overridden in the
90's, when a fraction of the French services realized that if
enterprises could not encrypt their data, then foreign powers such as
America would take advantage of that. And of course, shortly after the
bans were lifted, the French public started to hear a lot about pedophiles.

By the way, the protection of businesses is a very powerful argument on
the side of encryption. Weakening encryption now is guaranteed to make
securing these businesses harder, at a time when they are under constant
attacks from a variety of foreign powers and criminal gangs. Plus, the
defense of the businesses cannot be separated from the defense of their
employees, so the argument extends to protecting private data and
private communications, not just business data and communications.

-- Christian Huitema


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/attachments/20200630/07580733/attachment.htm>